Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c9.9

c9.9

The Dharmaśāstra either had to become more rigid and unitary or had to revise itself again and again in the wake of new philosophies and religious orders — Buddhists, Jainas, Tāntrikas, as well as the rise of the Bhakti movement. The revisions in the Dharmaśāstras (law books) were made in the last millennia of the BCE era, and they continued to be re-enforced or reinvigorated by fresh movements. If there was a Nigama tradition with the prevalence of *varṇāśrama*-centric and male-dominated world-view, there was the Āgama tradition. It continued in the practices of the Tantric cults, and the Bhāgavata and Vaiṣṇava schools of religious order. These cults and faiths simply overruled the hierarchies and inequalities — the differences of gender and caste, and proposed trans-*varṇāśramic* orders.